


Cut Here

by neversaydie



Series: cock it and pull it [1]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Closeted Character, Complicated Relationships, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post Episode 69, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Queer Themes, jack returns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 05:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13757442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: "It's okay man, we're just happy you're back," Ben is clearly sitting on a torrent of things he wants to say, practically vibrating in his seat, and Jack gets the impression he's full of more energy than his stature would suggest. "When you're feeling better we can talk about-""I-I don't remember much," just the prospect of thinking about the other place is enough to make Jack tense up all over again, muscles locking like he might have to run at any moment. There are no flies here, he forces the thought through his mind: no flies, no darkness, no Debbie. "I... I'm sorry. I can't...""Jack, it's okay. Nobody's gonna make you do anything you don't want to do," Sammy perches on the arm of the chair, like he doesn't want to move too far away from Jack in case he disappears again, and takes his hand with a firm squeeze in an effort to ground him.Takes his hand. Who is this guy and what has he done with Sammy Stevens?Oh no.





	Cut Here

**Author's Note:**

> my first fic in the fandom! start of a series exploring sammy and jack pre-king falls and post jack reappearing. because I refuse to believe he won't.

  
His hands shake as he reaches for the coffee pot.  
  
He hasn't slept since… well, since he can remember, but at least since he hurtled back into existence in the middle of a strange wood, and he doesn't remember much of the day that followed up to this point. But he remembers coffee.

He's already burnt the machine's contents by misunderstanding the settings when he lost words briefly, struggling with the half light and the strangeness of reading after so long with nothing but shadows, but it's dark and liquid and he hasn't tasted coffee - or anything - for so long.  
  
He used to be - is? - a coffee guy. Ground his own beans, experimented with roasts and blends until even his boyfriend, who was content to drink over-brewed Starbucks or the sludge from the station coffee pot all day as long as it was hot, got crinkles around the corners of his eyes when he took a sip in the morning and smiled and -  
  
"Jack?"  
  
It's like rising up from being underwater, and he takes a sudden gasp of air as he comes back to himself.  
  
His feet are wet.  
  
"You with me?" Sammy has his hands on his shoulders, pulling a strained smile when Jack finally recognises him and lights up. "There you are."  
  
"I'm here," Jack croaks, clearing his throat and blinking as he comes back into his body. There's coffee on the floor. "Oh… I think I broke the…"  
  
"It's okay, I needed a new one anyway," Sammy looks less scared once he hears him speak, but the strain around his eyes remains. He's starting to grey at the temples, and Jack absently wonders if it's from stress. Neither of them had been calm in the woods, that's about all he remembers. "Come sit down, okay? Watch your feet- come this way, babe, there's glass."  
  
As Sammy guides him out of the kitchen, carefully around the remains of the shattered coffee pot, Jack wonders at how different the house is. It's smaller than their place in Seattle, shabbier, with carpet and wallpaper and the distinct air of reluctant bachelor living lingering around the full laundry hamper and empty refrigerator. The ceiling slopes in the bedroom upstairs (did he sleep?), and both floors have the kind of windows that suggest not much light gets in. Light or air.  
  
His skin feels too tight, suddenly. Full of flies trying to crawl out.  
  
There's a guy - Ben, his brain supplies from a distance - sitting on the couch, and Jack stiffens under Sammy's hands when he catches sight of them. Does he know he called Jack _babe_ where someone could hear? That he's touching Jack where someone can _see_ ?  
  
Years of being hyper aware of contact, of trying not to stand too close together, of talking Sammy down from panic after his Shotgun act slipped and a guest looked at him funny, of checking the single box on forms, of _lying_ \- they all flood back at once.  
  
"It's okay," Sammy must be able to tell what he's thinking, because he squeezes Jack's arm with a sheepish smile that looks just a little more genuine by the minute. "He… People know, here. I hate myself a little less now."  
  
"If I'd known all it would take to kick you out the closet was a supernatural kidnapping I would've done it years ago," it's a weak quip, and Sammy flinches at the reminder of where Jack's been, but it seems to ease the tension between them somehow to get it out in the open.  
  
"Well, I should've pulled my head out of my ass years ago," Sammy gently guides him to sit in the armchair, a squishy object which is so different from decaying ground or rotting floorboards that Jack doesn't know how to react to it, at first. It’s been so long since he’s felt comfort. "You remember Ben, right?"  
  
"You were in the woods," Jack nods, and the guy glances at Sammy with relief. Jack can read the concern on his face - for Sammy, not for him - and is grateful for it, grateful someone was looking out for his guy when he couldn't. "Thank you."  
  
"It's okay man, we're just happy you're back," Ben is clearly sitting on a torrent of things he wants to say, practically vibrating in his seat, and Jack gets the impression he's full of more energy than his stature would suggest. "When you're feeling better we can talk about-"  
  
"I-I don't remember much," just the prospect of thinking about the other place is enough to make Jack tense up all over again, muscles locking like he might have to run at any moment. There are no flies here, he forces the thought through his mind: no flies, no darkness, no Debbie, no _him_ . "I... I'm sorry. I can't..."  
  
"Jack, it's okay. Nobody's gonna make you do anything you don't want to do," Sammy perches on the arm of the chair, like he doesn't want to move too far away from Jack in case he disappears again, and takes his hand with a firm squeeze in an effort to ground him.  
  
_Takes his hand_. Who is this guy and what has he done with Sammy Stevens?  
  
Oh no.  
  
"No," Jack stands up hurriedly, head spinning and damp socks dragging on the carpet as he yanks his hand out of Sammy's and stumbles backwards. Sammy looks like he's been slapped and had his heart torn still-beating out of his body all at once, while Ben seems frozen in shock.

Jack's back hits a wall and he clutches at it desperately, fingers scrabbling against the paper as he looks for a way out where there isn't one. There's never a way out.  
  
"You... You're not real," he chokes out, unable to tamp down his terror. They tricked him again, made him suffer with his own memories _again_. "You're not my Sammy."  
  
"Jack, it's me," Sammy gets up, slowly, and approaches with his hands up like he's trying to calm a cornered animal. The fake Sammy never did that, but who knows what new tricks the darkness might have learned.  
  
"You… you wouldn't," his voice is shaking and he wants to make it steady to stop Sammy's crushed expression in its tracks but - no, no - it's not really him. "Not with him here."  
  
Sammy looks between them, then realises what's happened when Jack's eyes flick cautiously to his hand. If he looked like he hated himself before, it was nothing on the devastation dancing across his face now.  
  
"I know I've changed, I know the old me wouldn't hold your hand in front of anyone," his voice is thick with regret, but then so were the voices of the other fake Sammys, in the dark, when _he_ really wanted Jack to hurt. "But I've just grown up. I promise that's all it is. I'm still me."  
  
"T-Tell me something you'd know," Jack is still watching with wide eyes, wary, not even glancing over as Ben mutters something about cleaning up the coffee pot and uses it as an excuse to slope off to the kitchen and give them some privacy. "Tell me something I'd… Something my Sammy would remember. "  
  
Sammy lets out a shuddering breath at that and closes his eyes for a second, face pinched and so, so tired. If he is real, then Jack wonders if it hurts him to try and touch the things he's buried too, even if they happened before the dark.  
  
"You remember the time you made me go surfing and I was too shy to admit I couldn't swim?" Sammy smiles to himself at that, the kind of painful smile which looks like the corners cut him. "And we spent half the day in the shallows until you got tired of waiting and dunked me?"

  
_"I didn't know you were gonna slip!" He pushes the sandy hair out of his eyes and slaps Sammy on the back, hand lingering a little too long on smooth bare skin as his friend - just friend, just friend, he has to keep telling himself when he catches Sammy looking at him when he thinks Jack can't see - splutters. "You could've told me 'not a strong swimmer' meant 'liable to fucking die'!"_  
  
  
"Or the time you… you dyed your hair green for St Paddy's and the colour didn't come out for a month?" The desperation is palpable despite the sweet memory, and Jack starts to soften at the edges because he always did, for Sammy. "And all your shirt collars turned green when it rained?"  
  
  
_"Are you sure you read the box right?" He can hear that Sammy's trying not to laugh behind him, as he starts scrubbing at the stained collar of yet another one of his favourite Led Zep shirts. "Are you sure it wasn't industrial poster paint or something?"_  
  
_"Fuck you, Stevens," he flips Sammy the bird without turning around, grumbling until his boyfriend slips his arms around his waist and kisses his (somewhat green) neck to grovel for forgiveness. "It was cute."_  
  
_"On the first day."_  
  
_"I hate you so much."_  
  
  
"When we…" Jack clears the hoarseness from his throat and tries again, staring down the Sammy-who-isn't-but-might-be. "After we fought, at the new year's party-"  
  
Sammy lowers his hands at that, body drooping like that's a bruised memory too far. It wasn't one of their best nights.  
  
"Jack..."  
  
  
_"Excuse me for wanting to kiss my fucking boyfriend at midnight!"_

 _It's nearly two in the morning, on the first day of the year, and they're both drunk. Jack is angry, Sammy is anxious, and one of the many upstairs bathrooms of their host's freaking mansion is definitely not the place to have this conversation. But they're having it, because a drunk Jack can never keep his frustrations to himself._  
  
_"This is an industry event, Jack!" The party is full of media movers and shakers, and Sammy is already frazzled with the scale of it. He wanted to be a radio big shot, sure, but failed to take into account how much energy being On took out of him until he had to do it all the time. "I'm supposed to be-"_  
  
_"Yeah. I know what you're supposed to be," Jack can't lower his voice, not with several shots in his stomach and bitterness in his mouth as he spits it out. "Normal."_  
  
_"That's not what I said and you know it."_  
  
  
"What did I do? After you freaked out."  
  
"I thought you were gonna leave me, I-"  
  
"What did I do after you panicked, Sammy?" Nobody but Sammy could ever know, he'd never mentioned it to anyone and they'd never even talked about it between themselves. They were good at that, back then. Keeping secrets.  
  
"You…" Sammy heaves out a shaky sigh before meeting Jack's eyes, delicate as a cracked mirror. "You sang to me."  
  
  
_"I don't know if I can do this," Jack has his hand in his hair, tugging at it to try and displace some of the awful tension buzzing in his veins. "You're my world, Sammy. But if Shotgun is more important than-"_  
  
_"No! You're the most important- Jack, you can't-" he's got that hitch going in his chest now, the one that shows up more and more these days, stalking them through difficult shows and late nights when everything gets too big to handle. When lies take over from love. Jack is so used to it he knows it's happening before Sammy does. "I love you so- I can't-"_  
  
_"Sweetheart, breathe," just like that, the argument dissipates like so much smoke. Deep down, Jack knows that loving Sammy will always win over anything else, even if it's the hardest thing in the world to do. They need to talk about their issues, but not when one of them sounds like he's barely treading water._  
  
_"I can't- Please don't-" his voice cracks as he begs, breathing fast and uneven like the air is running out, and Jack helps him sit on the floor before he can crumple. Sammy clutches at his shirt like he's going to up and leave, and Jack doesn't even try and pull away because shit, this is a bad one. "Jack-"_  
  
_"It's okay, you're okay," he sits down next to Sammy, voice calm and low, puts his arms around him and lets his boyfriend cling to him like a life preserver. "Follow my breathing, okay? It'll pass."_  
  
_Sitting on a cold bathroom floor riding out a panic attack is not, in an ideal world, how Jack would like to ring in the new year. This isn’t an ideal world, but it’s the one with Sammy in it, so it’s the one he'll fight like hell to stay in._  
  
_"Please don't leave me," is the first thing Sammy gets out, when he can catch a breath. "I'm sorry. I know I'm the worst person you could ever be with and it's not fair to ask you to keep this a secret. I'm a coward and I-"_  
  
_"I'm not going anywhere," Jack promises quietly, cutting Sammy off before he can get worked up again. "You being so hard on yourself is half the reason we're in this mess. You know I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be, I just… I get frustrated."_  
  
_"I'm sorry," his voice breaks again and Jack just keeps rubbing circles on his back. He can't say it's okay, because it isn't, but he's still here. "I love you so much, but I'm not as brave as you are. I wish I was."_  
  
_"You'll get there," Jack was out at fourteen and proud of it, but he knows the fear of not being ready. He doesn't come from a small town like Sammy, doesn't understand his boyfriend's fear of being the object of gossip, of ridicule, but respects it nonetheless. He won't push, not yet. "We'll be okay."_  
  
_Sammy doesn't apologise again, because he's done it a thousand times and he knows it won't take them any closer to living honestly when he can still taste fear in his spit and feel it in his chest, but simply presses his face into Jack's neck and breathes._  
  
_Jack does what he always does after a bad one and sings, just above a whisper, until they're ready to move._  
  
  
"Hey Jude," Sammy brings him out of the memory, standing in front of him real and whole. Older and wearier, with dark circles bruised in under his eyes and looking more haggard than Jack's ever seen him, but _there_. Tears and all. "You sang Hey Jude, because it's your favourite. And then we left the damn party and went home, and I don't remember what happened after that because I thought we were gonna have a thousand parties to not remember together."  
  
Jack's hands relax from where they were trying to cling to the wallpaper, thin shoulders beginning to sag in relief because he really is here. He really is home.  
  
"And if I'd known I was gonna lose you, that you'd be gone and I wouldn't be able to bring you back, then maybe I would've found a way to make myself grow up faster," Sammy swipes away a tear angrily, and the gesture inspires a surge of affection from deep in Jack's gut because, yep, that's his Sammy - still pissed off about feeling things. "Because I would've taken all the homophobic bullshit in the world if I'd been able to keep you, I just didn't realise that until it was too late. I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so fucking sorry."  
  
"It's really you," Jack knows he's just staring, is aware he probably looks like a crazy person… but up until last night he wasn't sure if he'd ever see another person again, so it's not like he cares much.

His Sammy is standing in front of him, that's all that matters.  
  
"It's really me," Sammy scrubs the wetness from his face again, trying to compose himself in spite of the futility of the gesture against the tidal wave of emotions washing over him now the carefully constructed dam has sprung a leak. "I've changed, I know I have, but I'm still me. I'm still yours."  
  
Wordlessly, Jack crosses the room and puts his arms around Sammy, burying his face in his solid shoulder. Sammy shudders as though nobody's touched him like that for a long time, and holds Jack so tight he feels safe for the first time since he packed up to leave for King Falls. Like he'll never let him go.

They may have no idea where they go from here, but they're  _home_.

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on tumblr if you wanna yell about kfam @imadoctornotadipshit


End file.
